Pomp

I'd like to pose a Euthyphro-style question that I hope will serve to stimulate discussion and illustrate a point I'd like to make.

Traditionally, "X ought to do Y" and "it is moral for X to do Y" are held to have the same meaning (at least, assuming that "ought" is meant in a moral sense...although I disagree that there is any real difference between "ought" used in the so-called moral sense and "ought" used in any other sense, traditionally there is held to be a distinction between the two). Why do Y? Either:

1) X ought to do Y because Y is moral. In this case, the fact that Y is moral for X provides the reason for X to do Y. What remains is an account of some reason why X ought to use what is moral as a basis for what to do. The most common answer is simply definitional (i.e. "what is moral is what you ought to do") and leads us right back to the original question I've posed. Another common answer is that we have a moral obligation to be moral, but this answer is circular, as it assumes its conclusion (that we ought to be moral and, hence, that moral obligations are binding) as one of its premises.

2) Y is moral because X ought to do Y. In this case, then there is some non-moral reason for X to do Y and the fact that X ought to do Y leads us to label Y "moral." "Moral" becomes a simple descriptive tag for what one ought to do and morality becomes essentially epiphenomenal. This, of course, flies in the face of the traditional importance placed on morality.

Thoughts? What implications, if any, does this have for the traditionally strong linkage between "what is moral" and "what we ought to do?"

(Note that there are certain conceptions of morality that I believe avoid this problem...I'm dealing solely with traditional moral systems that do entail this dilemma.)

Alonzo Fyfe

Technically, not true. There are three categories of morality: obligatory (ought to do), prohibited (ought not to do), and permissible (morality has nothing to say on the issue).

"It is moral for X to do Y" fits the category of "permissible". For example, it is moral for me to watch a sitcom while working out on my exercise machine. But is it the case that I morally ought to watch a sitcom while working out on my exercise machine?

No. The two statements are not identical.

"X ought to do Y" and "it is morally obligatory for X to do Y" are held to have the same meaning.

But, that is just a bit of a technical nit picking. (Though, I will come back to it later).

Let's ask another question:

Is a person going bald because he is losing his hair, or is he losing his hair because he is going bald?

To say that two different phrases have the same meaning is not to say that one of them CAUSES the other to be true -- or that the truth of the second is BASED ON the truth of the first. What it means is that the two statements have the same truth conditions -- there is no situation in which one is true where the other is false -- or vica versa. They are either both true or both false.

G.E. Moore used this as the basis for his famous "open question test". If somebody says A means the same thing as B, then the way to find out of this is true is to ask a question. "X is A, but is X also B?"

For example, against J.S. Mill's attempt to equate goodness for pleasure, G.E. Moore suggests that the question, "X is pleasureable, but is it good?" And, he says, this is an open question. If the two terms truly meant the same thing, then "X is good, but is it pleasureable?" would be the same as "X is going bald, but is he losing his hair?"

Since G.E. Moore's original essay, we have come up with a number of counter-examples to the open question argument. Such as, "X is equal to pi, but is X equal to the ratio of the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter?" For complex questions, definitional equivalents requires sufficient complexity or specialized knowledge that asking such a question has all of the characteristics of an "open question".

So, instead of trying to use the "open question" test, the only legitimate test is to look at the truth conditions of the two statements. If one wanted to disprove the claim that pi = the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter, one would come up with an instance where "X=pi" yields one answer, and "X = the cirumference of a circle divided by its diameter" yields a different answer.

Applying this to your original statement, to disprove that the meanings are the same what we need to come up with is a case in which the first is true, but the second is false (or vica versa). Which -- given the original way you phrased the question, was easy to do.

Can we come up with a case where "X ought to do Y" is false, but "it is moral for X to do Y" is true?

I already gave an example -- watching a sitcom while exercising. ?This is something for which "I ought to watch a sitcom while exercising" is false, but "it is moral for me to watch a sitcom while exercising" is true. Which proves that the two original statements are NOT identical.

The Euthyphro argument performs the same test. It asks, "Can we come up with a case in which "X is loved by God" is true, but "X is good" is not true. What if "God loves to hear the sound of tortured children screaming" is true. In such a case, "The sound of tortured children screaming is loved by God". However, "The sound of tortured children screaming is good" remains false. We have disproved the claim of logical equivalency.

But, can we come up with a case where "X ought to do Y" is true, but "it is morally obligatory for X to do Y" is false? That is how you would prove that there is a problem equating these two statements.

Ultimately, though, your main point is true. Anybody who attempts to assert that "you ought to do X because you have a moral obligation to do X" is begging the question. It's a bit like saying, "I can prove that Jim is going bald because Jim is losing his hair." If Jim's going bald is a matter of debate, Jim is losing his hair is no less a matter of debate.

There is no argument to be had here, because proving that "You ought to do X" means the same thing as proving "You have a moral obligation to do X."